The
other week the subterranean traveller was watching the nine o'clock
news, as he often does, and he was thrown right into a police chase,
or manhunt, as it's called these days. The police of Boston
Massachusetts USA were after a young man, a teenager really, whom
they suspected of complicity in the bombings at the finish line of
the city's previous weekend's marathon race, a heinous act which
would kill three people and wound multiple others; since the scrap
filled bombs exploded sideways, mostly by cutting into ankles and
legs, often so severe amputation was necessary. The traveller, having
heard of the story before, had ceased to be disgusted by the apparent
senselessness of the act. He started wondering about some of the
other characteristics surrounding this miserable deed and its
aftermath.
Firstly,
he asked himself: why does a manhunt in the greater Boston area
receive 15 minutes coverage on prime time Catalan evening news? Check
for a sample operació
policíaca de Boston . And after he had zapped some channels, why
was it shown on all available news channels in his area, either
national or regional, commercial or government controlled? Hadn't
anything worthwhile happened in Spain that day, perhaps? The ever
deepening crisis, ups and downs along a descending slope; the ongoing
revelations about the illegal financing scheme of partido popular,
with its leadership denying undeniable facts for a response; the
daily refreshed list of minor corruption cases around the country;
the never ending struggle between Catalunya and Spain, currently
involving the educational system, budget tightening beyond repair and
the possibility of Catalan independence as an answer to Madrid's
inability to address the issue of a strongly felt need for greater
Catalan autonomy; had all these topics suddenly been resolved or
simply lost their importance? And knowing the answer to be an
absolute no, since none of these problems had been dealt with nor
would they ever in a satisfying and intelligent way, the subterranean
wondered in how many countries around the globe news stations were
airing the same live footage of thousands of police and military
troops hunting down a lonely and in all likelyhood severly wounded 19
year old, a university student not previously known for his fighting
skills or love of arms. How many people on planet Earth had been
following the Boston hunting party on their tv screens?
Why
is it so important we all share the same negative experience, the
traveller asked. Would the citizens of the world perhaps frequent Mc
Donald's more often if they were fed American crime in stead of
learning about what's happening in their own town or country?
The
subterranean traveller kept watching until he couldn't stand all the
shouting and profiling any longer and then turned to the internet for
further detailing. And that's when new questions arose, dozens of
unanswered and perhaps difficult to answer questions. He wondered,
why would somebody want to bomb a marathon? Why would somebody who
presumably aimed to hurt American citizens for what the US is doing
to Iraq and Afghanistan, choose a local sports event known for its
international participation? Then the young man and his older
brother, already killed it seemed, were suddenly linked with Chechen
nationalism and the traveller wondered, where's the win situation in
making an issue of that?
The
traveller got into detail of the narrative, the official one that is,
with some commentators warning not to believe everything being told,
and he became instantly overwhelmed with new questions. Everything
seemed so bizarre. Why was there a fire drill going on when the bombs
exploded, a type of coincidence now almost habitual whenever a
terrorist attack occurs? Why had the FBI been in contact with the
elder brother for at least two years, encouraged him to seek
spiritual refuge in militant islamism, yet failed to notice his
apparent radicalisation towards terrorist attitudes?
Why
was it, that after the initial confusion only one narrative stood to
be played out? How did the police know the two men seen walking away
were definitely the ones they were looking for? Why did all this
remind the subterranean of the London bombings in the summer of 2005,
where a couple of youngsters carrying backpacks were identified as
the perpetrators and then after police shot the wrong guy nothing
much was heard of them anymore?
The
subterranean traveller asked lots of questions and received very few
answers. Can anybody tell him why police these days must look like
the military while the military look like invaders from Mars?
The
traveller asked other types of questions as well. Like, why do people
collectively lock themselves up in their homes to let state hunters
have a free go at a nineteen year old kid on the loose, a local
university student whose involvement in the bombings is far from
proven, just a suspect police would like to ask some questions?
Did
the people from Watertown realise they had given the corporate
politburo which passes for government these days free rein to hunt
down one of their own, a young student who had lived in the region
all his teenage life?
Do
the dear people of Watertown understand this posture is not so
different from how the good citizens of Germany let the nazi's
quietly go about their particular manhunt, starting off on
questionable yet strongly promoted moral issues in combination with
incidental killings and then escalating upto a level which came to
involve each and every once good citizen, the initial righteous fever
soon girating into a dark desire to fully exterminate, in modern
lingo to finish the job?
How
do you make a young man who is seriously wounded in his throat, not
able to speak and heavily drugged, produce a coherent chronicle of
events in which he states how his elder brother persuaded him to
participate, by merely nodding and shaking his head? What kind of
questions does one ask a person who can only nod and shake in order
to write an exciting, convincing and not nearly original story of two
self-radicalised jihadist brothers acting on their own, the elder the
initator and the one who would get shot, the younger influenced by
his sibling and the one who fled away from the shoot-out in which his
brother had been killed, starting a wild fox hunt in which one lonely
wounded fox was hunted down by thousands of science-fictionally armed
dogs – a story so near yet not precisely ! at the heart of people's
expectations, that it manages to captivate the imagination of
millions the world all over?
Such
things he was thinking about, and he wondered who'd next be hosting
the travelling mad war machine. Is it likely there are bets going on?
How much does one make from getting it right? Is this why our
politicians sell us out, because they are promised their good share
for dirty work delivered? El puto máster of the universe, the one-up
bandit, who is catching all the headlines today, is after all like
most headline makers small bite compared to the real profiteers of
destruction: those who believe they have the means to survive
whatever is coming.
Inevitably,
he turned sentimental. The subterranean often gets sentimental when
truth closely appears. He asked himself a different kind of question,
again. Honest emotions started running him over and the traveller
made himself believe a good outcome merely depended on collective
intelligent thinking, if anything else. Did the peoples of the world
realise their leaders had stopped being decisive to their fate and
that it all had become a matter of financial interests being played
out? And if so, wasn't it time people stopped the machine? Isn't it
time people stopped the machine?
With
love,
The
Subterranean Traveller
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